High Speed 2

The Government is proposing to build a new high speed rail line from London to Birmingham and further north, of which Phase 1 will cut through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Conservation Board has worked very hard with its partners within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to lessen the impact of HS2 proposals on this internationally significant landscape (see Latest News and Archive News sections below). You can access maps of the route from the HS2 website.

The Berks Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust has written to the European Commission to complain that the UK Government selected the route for High Speed 2 without properly considering the environmental impact.

The Chilterns Conservation Board today condemned the Government’s decision to proceed to the next stage of building a high speed rail line which will plough through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Ramblers Association map

51m

25 May 2011

13 local authorities including county and district authorities in Bucks have joined together to campaign against HS2 under the name 51m

Detailed maps published

17 May 2011

Detailed maps showing the impact of HS2 on the natural environment, historic features and rights of way network between Chalfont St Giles and Wendover, plus panorama photos along the route, are now available.

Taxpayers Alliance report

Tunnelling impact outlined

29 November 2010

The impacts of tunnnelling through the chalk geology of the Misbourne Valley are outlined in a report by Dr Haydon Bailey for the Chiltern Society. The impacts could include pollution of underground water from which domestic supplies are taken and a total loss of surface flow in the River Misbourne.

Slideshow

27 October 2010

Keith Hoffmeister of the Chiltern Society Photo Group has produced an excellent slideshow which shows in detail the countryside that will be damaged if HS2's Route 3 through the Misbourne Valley is built.

Government announcement

On March 11th 2010 plans were announced by the Government to build a new high speed rail line between London and Birmingham that will pass through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The aim is that the line, known as High Speed 2, will ultimately extend to northern England.

Routes through Chilterns

The Government's preferred route for the line as it passes through the Chilterns is via the Misbourne Valley, in a tunnel past Chalfont St Giles and Amersham and then mostly overground to Wendover. Construction of the route if it gets the go-ahead will start in 2017 and take nine years, at a cost of £33 billion.

Conservation Board response

The Chilterns Conservation Board believes that the net benefits of the new line, both environmental and economic, have not been proven and therefore there is not a strong enough case to justify causing irreversible damage to the Chilterns AONB. It is opposed to the line coming through any part of the Chilterns.

The Chilterns is protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, part of the same family as National Parks - its countryside is nationally important. It is not an appropriate place for any major development. Even if High Speed 2 is considered to be in the national interest that case has yet to be proven and accepted as beyond doubt. In the Board's view there are realistic alternatives to achieving the same environmental and economic gains.

National planning law states that major development within an AONB can only be considered if it is clearly in the national interest and cannot go anywhere else. The Conservation Board does not believe that High Speed 2 meets either of these tests.

What you can do if you are opposed to the line being built through the Chilterns:

Write to your MP

Write to Patrick McCloughlin, Secretary of State at the Department for Transport